When you’re a successful Internet company, evidently you need to treat your employees very well – especially at lunch.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc., a company that had long employed the former cook for one of the world’s most famous rock bands to keeps its employees well fed, launched a worldwide search on Thursday for two new chefs.
The Internet search company, which proudly boasts of fine cuisine free to employees, announced its hunt for culinary excellence in the loudest possible way — by issuing a news release on the job openings.
Charlie Ayers, who once cooked for the Grateful Dead but then earned valuable stock options as an early employee with Google, left in May to start his own restaurants. The company was so pleased with his culinary work that it even introduced him to investment analysts visiting in February.
The company said the chefs would oversee menus “from vegan entrees to pad Thai, grilled burgers, and wood-fired pizza-all while using organic ingredients whenever possible.”
Google said it would sponsor a cook-off between its top four applicants before the two hires would start preparing offerings which in the past have included “sweet potato jalapeno bisque with corn” or “grilled petite New York sirloins seasoned with Creole spices.”
We hadn’t been thinking so much about lunch at the new offices of PJ media slated to open in a month or so in El Segundo, CA. We’d been focusing on such things as Internet connections and servers and whether there’d be any decent parking in the building. But maybe we have our priorities wrong. Maybe Google could spare one of their also-rans in the chef competition, even though I have a feeling we may not be able to afford him or her, especially if they too worked for the Grateful Dead. We don’t have money for those kind of luxuries. As the Dead’s great songwriting duo of Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia warned us about “Uncle John’s Band“: “Well the first days are the hardest days, don’t you worry anymore…”
MORE on dining at Google here.
(ht: Sheryl, who is a pretty good cook herself)
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13 Comments
1. mythusmage:A new Mac Mini for Mythusmage would be nice.
(Wish list link in left sidebar. Your choice of model.)
Aug 6, 2005 - 10:07 pm 2. Lola:Hey . . . it’s good to hear that plans for PJ are proceeding nicely. I’ll be rooting for you guys and success in forging new grounds in journalism.
Aug 7, 2005 - 4:36 am 3. Cynic:How Can Pajamas Media Top This?
Maybe you need to do the following and possibly get Soros to back you?
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2005/08/google_ism_now_.html
In FrontPageMag, Lee Kaplan reports that Google News plans to give the International Solidarity Movement the status of a news agency.
Depends of course what is more important; Fwench Noeuvelle Cuisine or a decent and honest burger.
Aug 7, 2005 - 5:55 am 4. Silicon valley Jim:Google is located, moreover, less than a mile from the SF Bay (the site is somewhat spread out, so there may be a building or two more than a mile), and there’s a very nice city park and trails at the shore. One of my neighbors is starting there in a week, and he’s really looking forward to it – not least the ability to commute via bicycle, almost exclusively on pedestrian/bicycle trails from where we live.
Aug 7, 2005 - 7:04 am 5. ahem:A couple of thoughts:
A talent search? I can’t believe they’ve allowed all this good reality TV material to slip out of their hands…
Also, am I the only one who finds ludicrous the idea that an organization as obviously left-slanted as Google is shameless–and clueless– enough to hire a chef to serve gentrified food to its employees for lunch?
If they’re so much for the proletariat, they should be hiring a good, unglamourous ‘cook’ (as we used to call them)–preferably, one with a couple of small mouths at home to feed, one who really needs the bucks.
I mean, don’t they want to take some of the ample money they’re pissing away on organic arugula and End Poverty as We Know It, or something? Maybe they could give every employee a hair shirt for Christmas, re-establish some of their Leftist cred…
Aug 7, 2005 - 7:31 am 6. Eric Akawie:Iron Chef — Google!
(Of course, the secret ingredient would always be Spam.)
Aug 7, 2005 - 8:00 am 7. Silicon valley Jim:Also, am I the only one who finds ludicrous the idea that an organization as obviously left-slanted as Google is shameless–and clueless– enough to hire a chef to serve gentrified food to its employees for lunch?
If they’re so much for the proletariat, they should be hiring a good, unglamourous ‘cook’ (as we used to call them)–preferably, one with a couple of small mouths at home to feed, one who really needs the bucks.
Or perhaps, since Google probably has one of the highest average IQs of any company (I know some of those folks, and they’re very smart), they’ve figured out that they’re contributing by driving up property values and therefore property taxes (when a property changes hands) in Mountain View, and by employing people, some of whom would otherwise be unemployed, some of whom spend money and therefore generate sales tax revenue in Mountain View, and all of whom spend money and therefore generate sales tax revenue in Silicon Valley.
I’m one Mountain View resident who is happy to have them, regardless of their political views.
Aug 7, 2005 - 9:39 am 8. ahem:Silicon valley Jim:
I’m a Capitalist Insect, myself. So I’m damned glad companies like Google exist. I just wish they wouldn’t be such hypocrites.
Aug 7, 2005 - 6:34 pm 9. lindenen:I’ve got to know: how on earth do you make “Blackberry-infused water”?
Aug 8, 2005 - 1:44 am 10. Stacy's Mom:It’s like blackberry infused vinegar…without the vinegar.
BLACKBERRYVINEGAR
Or maybe it’s like blackberry infused pork chops, but use water instead of pork chops.
don’t bother…too hard to find the pork chop reference
Aug 8, 2005 - 7:37 am 11. Silicon valley Jim:ahem:
Fair enough. I don’t know whether Google as whole is a leftist organization, or just the people who determine the content of their services.
Hypocrisy is sort of endemic in Silicon Valley. It’s all about money here, but people like to pretend that it isn’t. I find it endlessly amusing to see bumper stickers that say “Live simply so that others may simply live” on cars that cost $50,000 or more and bumper stickers that say “Love your mother” (superimposed on a picture of the globe) on SUVs. It’s perhaps even more amusing that I’m frequently on my bicycle when I see them.
Aug 8, 2005 - 8:19 am 12. The Colossus:Roger,
I realize I’m not a huge blogger, but a lot of us who signed up on Pajamas Media are still waiting to hear the pitch . . .
Aug 9, 2005 - 3:22 pm 13. Johan Amedeus Metesky:I know Charlie Ayers. He’s a nice guy and no idiotarian. Got to know him through the Steve Kimock Band fan community. When Google went public, someone on the Kimock mailing list put out a fake press release announcing that Charlie had bought the band.
Aug 10, 2005 - 7:08 am